Biostar’s newest solid state drives won’t break the bank

More cheap SSD options.

Now that solid state drive pricing is within reach of value-conscious builders, Biostar is making its move with its new S100 Plus series, which are available in 240GB and 480GB capacities.

We don't generally recommend going lower than 240GB if you can avoid it, at least for a gaming PC, and bumping up to 500GB (or higher) is ideal. It's easier to hit those capacity points these days, compared to a year or so ago before SSD prices fell off a cliff.

In this case, Biostar's 240GB is priced at $35 and the 480GB is priced at $59. Those prices are on par with other value options on the market, though they're not the cheapest. Over on Newegg, there's a Patriot Burst 480GB priced at $49.99, while Adata's Ultimate SU650 480GB is on sale for $51.99.

Still, Biostar's drives are in ballpark, and it's possible that street pricing could end up lower. As of this writing, they're not showing up in stock at places like Amazon and Newegg.

Biostar is fairly light on details, such as what type of NAND flash memory chips it's using (our guess is TLC) and what controller. The one thing it does say is that the drives are built with a six-layer PCB that can operate in temps ranging 32F (0C) to 158F (70C).

Both drives are rated to deliver up to 540MB/s of sequential read and 460MB of sequential write performance.

The problem for Biostar is that it's going into a crowded field. Parity in pricing and performance might not be enough to stand out. If you just want a budget SSD, any SSD will deliver better performance than a hard drive, in which case you should just buy the cheapest option. But if you're looking for a good budget SSD, Samsung's 860 Evo and Crucial's MX500 are still the top contenders.